The Affair at the Inn Part 4

'I don't know what you two call happened,' I said, as soon as I could speak. 'We have been nearly killed--all of us, especially me.'

I looked at Miss Pomeroy; so did Sir Archibald. She is an active girl, and at the first suggestion of danger she had scrambled headlong up a steep bank, where she clung to the roots of the hedge, entirely forgetting all about me. She now came down, and required some a.s.sistance in descending, although she had climbed up, which is more difficult, all in a moment. She was certainly pale--really pale for the first time since she came here, and did not seem to think about her hat, which was hanging half-way down her back by this time. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say that when a pretty girl forgot her appearance there was something really serious in the air. She seemed to have forgotten, but I dare say she really was thinking that she looked nicer that way. She came up to the young man, and held out her hand to him, saying, 'Thank you, Sir Archibald.' Americans are very forward, certainly. If I had said 'Thank you,' and offered to shake hands with him, there might have been some reason for it, although I never thought of doing so; it was decidedly Me that Sir Archibald had rescued. This did not seem to make a bit of difference to them, however. He took her hand and shook it, and then I must say had the civility to give Me his arm, and we all walked back to the hotel. I felt so shattered that I went to bed for the rest of the afternoon.

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

GREY TOR INN

Mrs. MacGill is not the kind of person you'd a.s.sociate with danger,--being an armchair-and-feather-bed sort of character,--yet, by Jingo, the old girl has had a narrow squeak to-day. She and Miss Virginia went out for a walk together, the companion being invisible with the usual headache. I thought I would follow them a little way.

Mrs. MacGill is an interfering old person, and I have noticed of late that she scents a flirtation between the fair American and me. Whether there is a flirtation or not, I don't know (_I_ am not learned in such things); but if there were, she is not the person to stop it, nor any other old cat on earth. She has merely succeeded--I wish she knew--in putting it into my head that American girls are apt to be exceedingly attractive as well as eligible in the matrimonial market. I should think Miss Virginia was as eligible as any of them, and better looking than most.

I kept the pair in sight, and it was lucky that I did. A tremendous explosion from a quarry where some men are blasting made me stop short, and as to the old girl in front, she leaped about a foot into the air, and I could hear Miss Virginia laugh and say something funny about ankles and white stockings. Just then a most extraordinary noise began at the top of the lane, a pounding of hoofs and grinding of gravel and flying of stones; and in another minute, round the corner of this lane, which was of the narrowest sort and nearly roofed in with trees and banks, as these beastly Devons.h.i.+re lanes always are, came a herd of moor ponies--about twenty or thirty of them--squeaking and biting and kicking, in a regular stampede. The report of the blasting had startled them, I don't doubt, and part terror, part vice, made them kick up a s.h.i.+ndy and set off at full gallop. There wasn't a moment to lose. I ran for the women, with a shout, thinking only of the young one, of course. But when I saw the two together, there wasn't a question of which I must help. Miss Virginia had legs of her own; if Mrs. MacGill had any, they were past helping her now.

There was a sort of hurdle to the right; I managed to jam the old woman against it and shout to the girl, 's.h.i.+n up that bank! Look alive!' while I stood in front, waving my arms and carrying on like a madman to frighten the ponies. They bore down on us in a swelter of dust; but just when they were within about a yard of our position they swerved to the left, stopped half a second, looking at us out of the corners of their eyes, snuffed the air, snorted, gave a squeal or two more, and galloped off down the lane. It was a pretty narrow shave,--nothing, of course, if the women hadn't been there. Miss Virginia and I shook hands over it, and between us we got the old lady back to the hotel, nearly melted with fright.

That night after dinner I was smoking on the verandah in front of the hotel. I heard Miss Virginia singing as she crossed the hall, and looked in.

'It's rather a jolly night, Miss Pomeroy,' I said, 'not at all cold.'

'Isn't it?' she asked, and came to the door.

'There's a comfortable seat here,' I added, 'and the verandah keeps off the wind from the moor.'

She came out. It was quite dark, for the sky was cloudy and there was no moon, but there was a splash of light where we sat, from the hall window, so that I could see Miss Virginia and she could see me. She was dressed in a very pretty frock, all pink and white, and I have certainly now come round to the artist's opinion that she is an uncommonly pretty girl; not that I care for pretty girls,--of course they are the worst kind, and I have always avoided them so far.

'Well,' said Miss Virginia, 'you've done a fairly good day's work, I should think, and can go to bed with an easy conscience and sleep the sleep of the just!'

'Why, particularly?' I inquired bashfully.

'Why?' cried Miss Virginia. 'Haven't you rescued Age and Scotland from a cruel death? I suppose it didn't matter to you what became of Youth and America. But I forgive you, you managed the other so well.'

I couldn't help laughing and getting rather red, and Miss Virginia gave me a wicked look out of her black eyes.

'Why, Miss Pomeroy,' I said in a confused way, 'don't you see how it was? I argued to myself you had your own legs to save yourself on, while'--

But here Miss Virginia jumped up with a little scream.

'We don't talk about legs that way, where I come from!' she said, but I saw she was not really shocked, only laughing, with the rum little dimples coming out in her cheeks.

'Won't you shake hands again,' I suggested, 'to show you have quite forgiven me?'

Miss Virginia's hand was in mine, I was holding it, when who should come to the door and look out but Mrs. MacGill.

'I think it is very cold and damp for you to be out at this hour, Miss Pomeroy,' she remarked pointedly.

'Well, I suppose it is, Mrs. MacGill,' said Miss Virginia, as cool as you please, lifting up the long tail of her dress and making a little face at me over her shoulder.

Mrs. MacGill gave a loud sniff and never budged till Miss Virginia was safely inside. The old harridan--I'll teach her a lesson if she doesn't mend her manners!

CECILIA EVESHAM

_Friday evening_

Here I was interrupted, and now something new has happened that requires telling, so I'll skip our adventures of Thursday afternoon, and go on to Friday....

Well, this morning I came down to breakfast, almost blind with neuralgia. I struggled on till luncheon, when it became unbearable.

Virginia (I call her that already) looked at me in the kindest way during the meal.

'You're ill,' she said. 'You need putting to bed.'

Mrs. MacGill looked surprised. 'Cecilia is never very ill,' she observed tepidly.

'She's ill now, no mistake,' Virginia persisted, and rose and came round to my side of the table. 'Come and let me help you upstairs and put you to bed.'

I was too ill to resist, and she led me to my room and tucked me up comfortably.

'Now,' she said, 'this headache wants peace of mind to cure it; I know the kind. You can't get peace for thinking about Mrs. MacGill. I'm going to take her off your mind for the afternoon--it's time I tried companioning--no girl knows when she may need to earn a living. You won't know your Mrs. MacGill when you get her again! I'll dress her up and walk her out, and humour her.'

She bent down and kissed me as she spoke. It was the sweetest kiss!

Her face is like a peach to feel, and her clothes have a delicious scent of violets. Somehow all my troubles seemed to smooth out. She rustled away in her silk-lined skirts, and I fell into a much-needed sleep, feeling that all would be well.

I was mistaken, however. All did not go well, but on the contrary something very unfortunate happened while I was sleeping so quietly.

It must have been about four o'clock when I was wakened by Virginia coming into my room again. She looked a little ruffled and pale.

'I've brought Mrs. MacGill back to you, Miss Evesham,' she said, 'but it's thanks to Sir Archibald, not to me. She will tell you all about it.' With that Mrs. MacGill came tottering into the room, plumped down upon the edge of my bed, and began a breathless, incoherent story in which wild ponies, stampedes, lanes, Sir Archibald, and herself were all mixed up together.

'Did he really save you from a bad accident?' I asked Virginia, for it was impossible to make out anything from Mrs. MacGill.

Virginia nodded. 'He did, Cecilia, and I like him,' she said.

'Oh ho!' I thought. 'Is it possible that I am going to be mixed up in a romance? She likes him, does she? Very good; we shall see.'

And then, because the world always appears a neutral-tinted place to me, without high lights of any kind, I rebuked myself for imagining that anything lively could ever come my way. 'I couldn't even look on at anything romantic nowadays,' I thought, 'I doubt if there _is_ such a thing as romance; it's just a figment of youth. Come, Mrs. MacGill, I'll find your knitting for you,' I said; 'that will compose you better than anything else.'

IV

VIRGINIA POMEROY

THE GREY TOR INN

We had rather a nice half-hour at Little Widger to-day, Sir Archibald and I. Of course we were walking. It is still incomprehensible to me, the comfort, the pleasure even, these people get out of the simple use of their legs. We pa.s.sed Wishtcot and Wildycombe and then came upon Little Widger, not having known of its existence. The tiny hamlet straggles down a side hill and turns a corner, to terminate in the village inn, quaintly named 'The Mug o' Cider.' An acacia laden with yellow ta.s.sels hangs over the stone gate, purple and white lilacs burst through the hedges, and there is a cob-and-thatch cottage, with a dazzling white hawthorn in front of it and a black pig nosing at the gate.

O the loveliness of that May noon, a sunny noon for once; the freshness of the beeches; the golden brown of the oaks; above all, the s.h.i.+mmering beauty of the young birches! It was as if the sap had just brimmed and trembled into leaves; as if each drop had thinned itself into a transparent oval of liquid green.

The sight of Mrs. MacGill being dragged by Greytoria over a very distant hill was soothing in itself, or it would have been if I hadn't known Miss Evesham was toiling up beside her. We were hungry and certain of being late to luncheon, so Sir Archibald proposed food of some sort at the inn. He had cold meat, bread and cheese, and a tankard of Devons.h.i.+re cider, while I had delicious junket, clouted cream, and stewed apple. Before starting on our long homeward stroll we had a cosy chat, the accessories being a fire, a black cat, and a pipe, with occasional incursions by a small maid-servant who looked exactly like a Devons.h.i.+re hill pony,--strong, st.u.r.dy, stocky, heavy-footed, and tangled as to mane.